Vacant lots sit where homes were schedule to be built on the north side of Merced on Tuesday Oct. 30, 2012. Merced County is littered with hundreds of acres of these once well intended new neighborhoods. Merced County in California's central Valley is one of the hardest hit communities when it comes to the nations unemployment and foreclosed crisis.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Vacant lots sit where homes were schedule to be built on the north...

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Signs of the times in Merced County: unconnected cable TV and phone hookups.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Signs of the times in Merced County: unconnected cable TV and phone...

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Signs of the times in Merced County: empty mailboxes.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Signs of the times in Merced County: empty mailboxes.

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Signs of the times in Merced County: solitary fireplug.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Signs of the times in Merced County: solitary fireplug.

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The Chang family works together to put food on the table in the home they all - Leng Chang, his wife and four children and his parents - share in Merced.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

The Chang family works together to put food on the table in the...

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Pictures of family and Hmong men of honor line walls in the home. Chang, as youngest son in a Hmong family, must care for his parents. Though he is out of work, they and his wife have jobs.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Pictures of family and Hmong men of honor line walls in the home....

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Chang, 28, holds daughter Kaily, 1 1/2. Laid off two years ago, he cares for the kids at home while his wife and parents work.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Chang, 28, holds daughter Kaily, 1 1/2. Laid off two years ago, he...

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Watermelon and freshly picked tomatoes are among the fruits and vegetables grown on the Chang family farm in Merced. They sell the produce at their stand.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Watermelon and freshly picked tomatoes are among the fruits and...

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Watermelon and freshly picked tomatoes are among the fruits and vegetables grown on the Chang family farm in Merced. They sell the produce at their stand.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Watermelon and freshly picked tomatoes are among the fruits and...

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Watermelon and freshly picked tomatoes are among the fruits and vegetables grown on the Chang family farm in Merced. They sell the produce at their stand.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Watermelon and freshly picked tomatoes are among the fruits and...

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Doua Lor, Leng Chang's mother, works in the fields of the 22-acre farm she runs with her husband. Hmong refugees, the family settled in Merced 20 years ago.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Doua Lor, Leng Chang's mother, works in the fields of the 22-acre...

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Lao Chang closes the fruit stand on his farm, which he and his wife run seven days a week.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Lao Chang closes the fruit stand on his farm, which he and his wife...

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A pile of shoes from the hard-working family of eight rests outside the front door at Leng Chang's house.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

A pile of shoes from the hard-working family of eight rests outside...

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Passing one of many "For Rent" signs in the downtown area, Mickey Mann, 48, homeless, heads away from Main Street in Merced with her belongings heaped in a shopping cart.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Passing one of many "For Rent" signs in the downtown area, Mickey...

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Nick Karastathas, 36, is an arborist who cares for the 11,234 trees of Atwater. His job was recently spared.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Nick Karastathas, 36, is an arborist who cares for the 11,234 trees...

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Irma de la Cruz, 50, of Planada hurt her back in 2005, got laid off and now bounces among the homes of family and friends.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Irma de la Cruz, 50, of Planada hurt her back in 2005, got laid off...

The water tower in this city in the heart of California's farm belt looks like it could use a fresh coat of paint, but there seems to be at least one thriving tree in front of each home.

The 11,234 trees that line the streets and fill the parks are the charges of Nick Karastathas, an arborist in this city of 28,500 in Merced County. But Atwater, which is grappling with a fiscal emergency and trying to avoid bankruptcy, told Karastathas on Oct. 2 he and 13 others of the city's 87 public employees would be laid off at the end of the month.

"To put it mildly, disappointed is a word that's been running in my head," said the 36-year-old, single dad of two boys, ages 12 and 7, as he sat at a park bench in the shade of one of those trees.

Atwater's crisis is the latest in a years-long string of problems in Merced County, which is two hours southeast of San Francisco but worlds apart. Hammered by the Great Recession, it has some of the highest rates of unemployment and home foreclosure in the country.

The region is a case study in the economic problems, in California and across the nation, that are driving voter interest in Tuesday's election.

Of the 372 metropolitan areas in the nation, the Merced area ranked 369th in September in employment, with a 14.5 percent unemployment rate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The county's foreclosure rate was 1 out of every 183 housing units in August, compared with 1 out of 340 in the state and 1 of 681 in the nation, according to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure marketplace.

Karastathas, who is set to earn his associate degree in landscape horticulture this spring after years of night classes, worried about who would care for the city's trees after he is laid off.

"I've put a lot of heart and soul into the program here, and it's hard to deal with it getting ripped from you," he said.

But he had a bit of hope. If city leaders could save money elsewhere, his job could be spared.

No voice in House

Residents in Merced County say they need jobs, occupational training and housing assistance. They have also lacked a voice in Washington, D.C., for three months.

Dennis Cardoza, the Democratic congressman whose district included the county, resigned in August, leaving so little time before the November election that a special election was not held. Democratic Rep. Jim Costa and Republican Brian Whelan are facing off for the seat in the redrawn district.

The county - which broke for President Obama in 2008 but George W. Bush in 2004 - has one of the lowest voter registration rates in the state.

"There is some fatalism out there," said Alex Whalley, an assistant economics professor at UC Merced. "There's a feeling that this recession is happening and there's little that policymakers can do to make it better or end it."

But despite the grim statistics, residents speak with pride about their community. There is a sense that through self-reliance, the help of neighbors and, for many, a faith in God, people can get through the worst of times and perhaps improve their own standing.

"These people get reality," said Darrel Schmidt, the operational manager at the Merced County Food Bank. "They're seeing it firsthand. It strengthens you. You realize you've got to get out on your own if you're even going to feed yourself."

Boom and bust

Part of that resiliency stems from the fact that the county has been down and out before. It suffered a blow when Castle Air Force Base, then the county's top employer, closed in 1995. The county historically has had a high unemployment rate because of seasonal employment swings in agriculture and a poorly educated population.

With the construction of the new UC campus, which opened in 2005, the real estate bubble ballooned amid hype that the area would turn into the next Davis overnight. The median home value in the city of Merced, population 80,000, surged from less than $100,000 in early 2000 to $344,000 in mid-2006, according to Zillow.

In August 2011, the median home value in the city bottomed out at $106,000. The bust plundered the tax base and decimated construction and real estate jobs. In the city of Merced, the number of new single-family homes built plummeted from 1,427 in 2005 to 17 in three years.

Ties that bind

Some people have left the area because of the lack of jobs, but one person who has stayed is Leng Chang, 28. He and his family came to the United States in 1992 from Southeast Asia as part of the wave of Hmong refugees who settled in the Merced area starting in the late 1970s.

Chang lost his job as a family counselor at a nonprofit agency two years ago when federal funding was cut and he has thought about moving somewhere else. But as the youngest son in a Hmong family, he is supposed to take care of his parents. And his parents - with whom he, his wife and their four children live - do not want to leave because they have stable jobs in the area as farmers.

He is now trying to find a job at night so he can continue to take care of his two youngest children during the day.

He said he was frustrated about his situation, but added, "I'm not all that frustrated because I'm not the only one that's suffering. Pretty much everyone is going through something like this."

The local economy has shown flickers of recovery - the county's agricultural backbone, for example, saw record revenue in 2011, more than $3 billion. But some farmers have moved their operations to other states to escape the cost and burden of farming in California, taking jobs and tax revenue with them.

Political signs near some farms lambaste Democratic politicians in English and Spanish for reducing water allocations for farmers and backing the "high-speed rail boondoggle."

Poverty and pride

One of the most economically depressed parts of the county is Planada, a community of 4,500 where a large majority of residents are Latino. Housing settlements for farmworkers spread through the area.

But even here, where there are drug and gang problems, boarded-up shacks and speeding tumbleweeds, there is a sense of pride.

"You know what, I've always loved it," Irma de la Cruz, 50, who has lived in the county almost all her life, said of Planada. "You look out your window and it's nestled in the mountains that lead to Yosemite."

The window de la Cruz was looking out of was not her home's, but the windshield of her aging minivan. The mother of five and grandmother of five, with one on the way, could no longer afford the rent on her Merced home when her welfare and disability payments were cut last year.

She injured her back in a car accident in 2005, the same year she lost her job, and said the pain has prevented her from finding stable work. Since she had to move out of the home in Merced, she has been bouncing among friends and family members' places. For the past month, she and her youngest daughter have been staying with a friend in Planada.

Working together

Much of her life is in that van - two car seats in the third row for the grandchildren; clothes; books on her religion, Messianic Judaism; and food there is not room for in her friend's kitchen. The van broke down last month, but a friend fixed it. He asked for only breakfast, lunch or dinner in return.

"The beauty of it brings me back here and hoping that things change," she said, pointing to the mountains in the distance from inside the car.

Neighbors are quick to help each other, even when they require help themselves, residents said.

Seventy-nine-year-old Gladys Jones of Atwater, for example, worked as a babysitter until she was 74. She said she has helped raise 78 kids, and if a family couldn't pay her, she did the job anyway. It's why everyone calls her "Grandma."

"I don't think many people know my real name," she said.

Jones had to give up her mobile home a few years ago because she couldn't afford the rent on the land and moved into government-subsidized housing. But she helps deliver food from the food bank to seniors who cannot come get it themselves. While the number of people the food bank serves keeps rising, it is not hurting from a lack of donations, according to Schmidt, its operational manager.

Hopeful signs

There are plenty of success stories here. The Xiong sisters, Lesley and Lasley, are the oldest of eight daughters whose parents are Hmong refugees. Raised in the area, they recently finished their medical residencies and returned to Merced as doctors, with hopes of helping the underserved Hmong community.

Then there's the Merced Theatre project, a decade-long public-private effort that restored the theater to its original 1931 appearance. The Spanish-style theater, which has a capacity of more than 1,100, reopened in April and now hosts film screenings and live performances.

In addition, the UC campus is growing. Its enrollment passed 5,700 this fall, and it is attracting educated professionals to the area. A report released last month found that the Merced campus had infused $815 million into the San Joaquin Valley economy since July 2000.

Layoffs' silver lining

There is plenty of bad news, though, like the layoffs of city workers in Atwater.

"A couple of them have little babies, and I just ripped their worlds apart," said Frank Pietro, the chief of police and interim city manager.

Pietro and Mayor Joan Faul did not try to pass the blame onto someone else. Not Sacramento or Washington for slashing funding, not the City Council for not raising water rates in two decades. Faul rants sometimes about how the region and its problems have been ignored by President Obama and Mitt Romney, but quickly catches herself.

"You just have to assume the responsibility, and that's what I've had to do as mayor," she said.

But even bad news has silver linings. Thanks to concessions from public employees, the number of layoffs was reduced from 14 to eight later in October.

Karastathas, the arborist, was one of the people whose job was spared. It means he can continue to work on the city's trees.

"I think that's what I'm most excited about because it's something I've put my stamp on," he said late last month. "The most upsetting part was going to be losing what I've done so far."